."

"But what about you?" whispered Murray.

"You leave that to me, sir. I'm big enough and old enough to take care
o' mysen."

Murray was silent, for it was no time to dispute. Every now and then--
as fast as their enemies could reload--there was a shot from the bank,
and the bullets whizzed just over the heads of the men. The young
officer's disposition was to ask what the sailor intended to do, but he
contained himself, and, feeling for an oar, thrust it over the side and
into the rowlock, conscious the while that the others had done the same,
but in his case and that of the man in front for the oar-blades to rest
upon branches of the submerged tree. He realised, though, that his was
the bow oar, and for a few moments that was all he could grasp. Beyond
that everything was confusion, and he sat ready to pull, and in spite of
himself starting violently at every shot from the shore when the bullet
struck the boat or splashed in amongst the branches of the ingeniously
contrived dam.

Then the lad felt something like a hysteric sob escape from his breast
as the puzzle and confusion from which he suffered gave place to clear
mental light, and he grasped the full force of the big sailor's plan.

The noise of panting and splashing which accompanied what felt like a
sudden lightening of the boat was caused by Tom May lowering himself
over the side, after laying down the boat-hook with which he had been
sounding the depth; and then Murray felt that the brave fellow had begun
to wade with the water close up to his arm-pits, forcing the bows of the
boat away from the tree-trunk against which it was pressed by the water,
and gaining a little.

"That'll do it," he said, with a deep grunt.

"Shall I get to the boat-hook, messmate?" whispered Titely.

_Bang_! came from the bank.

"There's your answer," growled Tom May fiercely. "You 'bey orders and
stick to your oar. That was precious nigh, though."

Murray heard every word, and it was to him as if he could see everything
that the big sailor did, as with one arm over the cutter's bows he
forced it a little more and a little more away, fighting against the
pressure of the water and meaning to get the boat at right angles to the
dam and her stem pointing straight up stream before he gave the order to
pull.

But it was slow work, for the pressure of the water was so great and the
man's foothold on the bottom so insecure that at last, and just as he
was about to ca